WordPress Any Good?

WordPress Any Good?

By:  Jason Itec

Recently, there has been a trend of school districts utilizing teacher-created classroom blogs by WordPress. WordPress started out simply as a free online blogging program, but over the years it has transformed into a very powerful and versatile content sharing platform. WordPress users as well as web developers have been pumping out a steady supply of free and premium themes and plug-ins that can transform a basic WordPress site into just about anything you can imagine. This benefits educators in that a site can be created that integrates a teacher blog, assignment calendar, as well as uploaded course material that students can access at their convenience.

WordPress has designed an educational tutorial to help teachers design and maintain professional looking classroom websites. These classroom sites can be created to be very complex, and the amount of student involvement and interaction is up to the creator. A teacher can assign specific roles to each student so that they will be permitted to contribute to blogs and share thoughts and ideas. The roles can also be expanded to allow students the ability to create and share their own original content on the class website. This can allow a safe and secure platform for students to comment on peer work and share ideas.

Also, WordPress can also be utilized in its open-source formatting for students to create their own personal websites as class projects. For instance, a lesson in ancient Chinese history could lead students to create a fully integrated website with pictures, videos, and information about a specific dynasty or region. Students would not only be researching, filtering, and sourcing historical content, but they would also be learning how to size images, embed video, and create an aesthetically pleasing website.

Which LMS is Best?

By: JasonItec

Every year new open source learning managements systems hit the web, and this leaves educators’ heads spinning trying to find the best one for them.  It is very difficult to beat Schoology for its familiar social media-style dashboard and intuitive mobile app.  Also, Google Classroom blends seamlessly with Google Docs allowing students and teachers an easy way to collaborate as well as create and turn in assignments.  But, from an institutional perspective, Moodle probably offers the most adaptability and offers schools or even districts a way to create a custom LMS for their specific application.

 Moodle, based in Australia, is a learning management system which combines forums, blogs, and wikis along with online curriculum and coursework into a virtual learning environment. Teachers have the ability to customize the style, structure, and content of their virtual classrooms through Moodle, and the all-inclusive platform keeps everything organized for the students, parents, and teacher’s convenience. The best part about Moodle is that it is open-source, so teachers and/or school district administrators can set up a blended learning classroom or building without adding the cost of a pricey into the budget.

Logging into Moodle’s demo site as a teacher, all of the features are available to test. There is sample course content as well as students, and this allows for testing the online grade book by actually inputting grades and comments onto the sample assessments. A great tool in Moodle’s assessment generator is the ability to embed YouTube videos directly into the question. This adds another level of sensory modality that twenty-first century students need exposure to, especially considering similar questioning is used in the new digital PARCC assessments. Comparing it against similar learning management systems, it would be difficult to tell that Moodle is open-source given the quality of design and function.

Moodle brings to mind other popular open-source programs such as WordPress in that the popularity has prompted its users to create and share loads of customized themes and plugins that really ad to the versatility and appeal of the product. This allows teachers to create a fully-loaded and attractive LMS without the cost or countless hours of coding it would take to create it themselves. Another product of Moodle’s popularity is the growing amount of free shared content. Teachers are sharing information, lessons, and even full curriculum units amongst the community. In this respect, Moodle allows the user to learn from and utilize existing lessons in their respective content area. Why reinvent the wheel when it may only need polished?

Skype Guest Speakers in K-12 Education

By:  JasonItec

Two major barriers that exist in bringing students together with people who can contribute to lesson discussions are distance and time. An online tool that can easily bring guest speakers into the classroom or distance learning environment is Skype. With Skype, the speaker can avoid the burden of missing work and traveling to a school building in order to share their knowledge and experience. Skype, a free online video conferencing platform, can bring people together with live audio and video anywhere a laptop with a webcam and microphone will go.

A class lesson on Roman engineering and architecture would really benefit from having a professional speaker dissect the talking points and share real world experience. With a program such as Skype, making that happen is much easier. The professional speaker, from anywhere in the world, would only need to log in, connect with the classroom, and share their experience and ideas. Skype’s website has tools and ideas for teachers to find and bring scientists, inventors, historians, and other professionals right into the classroom in real time.

This type of communication eliminates the need for travel time and makes scheduling possible, especially for busy professionals.

Also, Skype has partnered with museums and zoos to help teachers easily make connections and bring their students on virtual field trips without leaving the school. For schools, Skype offers and ad-free version, so classes can have a more streamlined educational experience. As Skype expands its educational front, these opportunities for teachers should also grow and basically put the world at the fingertips of classes all over the world.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware Project

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware Project

By:  JasonItec

 MIT is one of the most prestigious technology and engineering colleges in the world, and they have developed a program to make available over two thousand of their courses online for free. The entire world can now have access to the same coursework as MIT students. Currently, the Open Courseware Project (OCW) holds 2150 online courses offering everything from Economic History to Quantum Physics with new courses being uploaded regularly. To finance such a large undertaking, MIT OCW has an annual budget of around 4 million dollars, half of which is paid for by outside donations and grant monies. So, the growth and longevity of this program relies heavily on the continued support of its donors.

The MIT OCW has a massive virtual library to go along with the online coursework. PDF versions of the same textbooks used by the university are available online, for free! Every course has tabs for a syllabus, calendar, assignments, projects, and pedagogy of the class design. Embedded in the coursework are literature, text, video, and lecture materials. A person from halfway across the world could essentially map out their coursework and educate themselves with MIT designed materials and content for the price of internet access.

The question is why would a university that is at the forefront in technology education basically open up their playbook for everyone else to see?

The rationale behind this project is not for MIT to show off how awesome they are, even though it may be a side-effect, but the theory is to make the point that knowledge sharing is good for the world on many different levels. Sharing information makes for better teachers, better researchers, and better problem solvers. Basically, it cuts out learning curves and has the potential to make the world a healthier place, a safer place, and overall a better place. For distance education specifically, there is a module in OCW called “OCW Educator” that is essentially a “behind the scenes” look at how some of the best teachers in the world design and create online coursework. This is an amazing resource for anyone in the distance education or blended learning field to have the opportunity to take advantage of this knowledge and utilize it for their own professional development.

Browsing through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware Project website, ocw.mit.edu, it is impossible not to be impressed with every aspect of what they are doing. From their rationale of creating the project to the ongoing quality and development of the product itself, the whole program is just educational excellence epitomized. As an educator, reading through the articles, press releases, and newsletters on their website is inspiring down to the core.

Podcasts for Audio Education

By:  JasonItec

The use of audio in education can be an effective tool to offer teachers and students flexibility and varied modalities of learning. Since the radio was invented, its range and versatility has been utilized for distance education to transmit information to people who can relaxingly listen instead of having to read. Listening to information is different from other modalities in that it allows for the person to multitask while learning. Books and television are effective tools for information transmission, but they do not allow for the eyes and hands to be idle the way that audio can. At the same time, audio has limitations in terms of visual appeal and the ability to maintain audience focus.

For modern educational purposes, the use of analog audio has seen its day. Digital audio is much more versatile in storage and transmission, and it allows for playback and storage on devices familiar with 21st century students. One example of an effective use of digital audio for distance education is the Podcast. A Podcast is a digital recording that can be as simple as one person speaking into microphone or as complex as a regular radio show with guests and predictable formatting. The use of Podcasts for educational purposes offers students a lot of flexibility in how and when they receive the information. Students can play these recordings while they are jogging or even driving in the car, and this type of versatility is something other forms of distance learning communication cannot compete with. Being that Podcasts are synchronous, or happening outside of real time, they are limited in that students cannot ask questions or comment on specific points being covered.

Forms asynchronous audio include live educational radio and audio conferencing with applications such as Skype. Educational radio is very predictable in format and can allow for expert guests to share in depth knowledge of their content area of expertise. Live educational radio is flexible in that it may be possible to call in and speak to the host, but availability can be limited depending on the popularity and format of the show. Audio conferencing does allow for direct communication with the speaker but also has its limitations. Depending on how many people are linked into the audio conference, interruptions and confusion on who is speaking can create barriers to effective learning and communication. Programs such as Skype however can be great tools for teachers to bring expert speakers into their classroom without the extra burden on the speaker to actually come to the school. Also, allowing one class to have a synchronous Skype interview with the guest and the rest of the classes to hear an asynchronous recording of the previous session, can open more doors for speakers by limiting the interview time required.

Audio use in education can be a useful tool, but the lack of visual appeal and ability to maintain interest is a serious setback with students today. The big advantage of audio is best utilized through the Podcast model. The ability to listen and re-listen to recorded lectures or Podcasts while students are doing other tasks is a distinct advantage over any other mode of communication. Time spent cutting grass, driving, and even cooking dinner is time that otherwise would be off limits to any type of studying or learning. But with the radio or iPod playing in the background, this time is now available for students to make better use of. So, while audio is not the ideal form of content transmission for education, the positives are far too advantageous to forgo its use all together.

Should Educators Blog?

By:  JasonItec

Blogs, by definition, are meant to be very informal and opinionated.  In a world where personal opinions are becoming less tolerated everyday (especially for people who work in the public sector), is it even safe for educators to blog?

I have kept up with some educational blogs over the years from some really brilliant people who I have really come to look up to.  Although, sometimes the nature of blogging allows for a little bit of “ranting,” and that can be dangerous.  Criticizing the wrong policies, people, or public institutions could get you in serious trouble in 2015.  Several recent blogs that I have read heavily criticized new school testing policy, state lawmakers, and the general direction of our educational system.  While criticizing someone or something that is hundreds of miles away (and in a different political party) has proven safe for the time being, what happens if a blog directly or indirectly criticizes a policy or position in their own district or own political party?  Who knows, but I know I wouldn’t want to find out.

My point is, I guess, is that if educators are going to blog, then the content should be kept on the upper levels of informality while keeping focus on advancing education as opposed to degrading it based on their personal opinions.  Blogging is a powerful tool, and I have learned a lot over the years from new lessons and technology ideas to public policy and educator standards.  But, I have also read some blogs that I would have been a little hesitant to put my name on as an educator.  Sometimes you do not know exactly where the line is until you have already crossed it.  So, keep blogging out there, but be careful what you say.  Words on the internet never go away, even long after opinions do.

Are Webquests Even Cool Anymore?

By:  JasonItec

I hearken back ten years ago when I was in the home stretch of getting my bachelors degree in education, and I had a technology class as one of my remaining “stragglers.”  I really had no idea what to expect, but I was pretty confident in my ability to handle a class that would be rooted in using technology.  After all, I installed a remote-start system in my truck all by myself just the previous year.  Those were actually cool back then.  Before long, I found myself halfway through another whirlwind semester at the revered Youngstown State University when I was told I needed to create a webquest.  This was 2005.  I had never even heard of a webquest (great work YSU education dept.).  To make things even worse, webquests have to be created on a website, which I had no idea how to make either.  Remember, this was before drag and drop Weebly sites.  I had to make this bad boy on Dreamweaver. Luckily for me I had a great instructor, and a week or so later I had created a pretty great Revolutionary War Webquest (which I never looked at again incidentally).  Regardless of whether I actually used it or not, the lesson itself was easy to navigate, educational, fun, and cutting edge.  Fast forward 2015…not so much.  Webquests are just not cool anymore.  The allure of looking stuff up on the computer is worn out, and students are just not impressed anymore.

I have been blessed to have access to a class set of laptops for the past three school years, so the sky is literally the limit as far as my lesson planning.  I cannot imagine teaching without them anymore. But, when I want to introduce a new unit or topic to the class, sometimes I find myself Googling webquests that the students can use a primer for the lesson.  I have looked at hundreds and hundreds of webquests on almost any topic you can think of in World History, U.S. history, Language Arts,  etc.  The common theme I have found in searching for diamonds in the webquest rough?  They are all basically worksheet packets without the paper.  Most of the webquests that I have seen have a list of questions as the “task” accompanied by a convenient link to find the answers.  Sound familiar?  Very seldom do I find a good a webquest that is actually interactive or even resembles anything to do with a “quest.”  Most of the time they are just busywork questions.  It has become a joke with my students even.  When I assign a webquest, they look at me and do the Austin Powers air-quote “WebQuest.”  The students know it sounds way cooler than it actually is. I do try to be creative and design good lessons, but sometimes, when introducing a new topic you just need kids to look up answers from a list of questions. If that is the case, the World Wide Web is flush with these things called Webquests.